author | Cui Siye
editor | Zhan Tengyu
title picture | photo provided by interviewee
23-year-old Waiwai is a tuner. Two months ago, he assembled 18 unknown rappers to create a self-made rap show called "Rap Monster Spawner." Many of them are contestants who have been eliminated from well-known rap variety shows, a bit like the self-deprecating "league of losers" in the rap industry.
In the comments and comments about "Rap Monster Spawner", "real" is the most frequently mentioned word, followed by "abstract". Some contestants got into a fight on the show and were nicknamed "Superhero Rap" by netizens. Contestants were worried that no one would watch the finals, so they went to the streets to solicit people to enter for free. A young contestant who was favored by everyone wore the same clothes from beginning to end to perform. The freestyle in the competition can be illogical, and the prize for the champion player is a large box of lottery tickets.
Real means not hiding it, abstract means that the players are clearly different from the mainstream, generally have weird styles, and there is no such thing as idol baggage.
is similar to the contestants who are too simple and underground. Wai Wai is a tuner who has just entered the industry. He has experienced the days when his works were not interested and his life was difficult. His recording studio was barely built last year by scraping together money from here and there, and there are currently only three people in his team. Even though I am not well-off, I sometimes help other young singers who also have no money to compose songs for free.
Nomi and Sanqian are in Waiwai's recording studio. (Photo/Photo provided by interviewee)
But this small, simple-looking recording studio has successfully made many rappers famous. Among them are Nomi, who became popular all over the Internet not long ago. Two popular songs, "Apu's Missing" and "Thank God", were both recorded and produced by Waiwai.
Waiwai and his brothers are an unseen but huge group of people in the rap circle. They are all insisting and confused for their love, just like Nomi said in "Apu's Missing" written to her grandfather, "Still the same old face, kind look/Do you think what I'm doing now is called rap?"
Welcome to the "Monster Spawner"
"Monster Spawner" is a kind of continuous function in the game "Minecraft" The device for spawning elite monsters was later extended to a place where powerful characters constantly appear. Netizens joked that Waiwai's recording studio is like a monster spawner, spawning rappers such as Nomi, Fierce Katy, Cricket, etc. who are not mainstream but have their own characteristics. The
recording studio was built in Hangzhou in April last year. Waiwai rented an 8-square-meter rental house with his friends Sanqian and Jic. They spent almost all their money and finally had a recording studio of their own. studio. This is almost all of Wai Wai. He often sleeps on the bay window of the recording studio, and it is common for him to "go hungry twice in three days".
Because he just entered the industry and has little reputation, the recording studio has been unable to make ends meet. In order to give the recording studio more exposure, Waiwai decided to start a live broadcast. He came up with the idea of a "freestyle battle" and asked his friend Sanqian and others to live stream the competition in the recording studio.
But unlike traditional freestyle, Waiwai wanted to be more creative. He let Sanqian, who had no experience in rap, play as he pleased. As a result, Sanqian's performance was full of surprises: his rhymes were always illogical. , it took a long time to hold back two words, but combined with Wai Wai's crazy support and the "black whistle"-like victory or defeat decision, it created a very hilarious program effect.
In the recording studio, Sanqian freestyle battled with others. (Photo/Photo courtesy of interviewee) The
live broadcast room became popular because of this alternative freestyle battle, and Sanqian was called "Brother Cricket" because of a song called "I'm Like a Cricket". Online has expanded to offline, and rappers have begun to come to the recording studio to compete with Sanqian, many of whom are well-known rappers.
At the same time, the recording studio has also welcomed more and more underground rappers. In 2023, Nomi met Waiwai under the introduction of a friend, and he played the song he wrote for his grandfather to Waiwai. Waiwai thought the lyrics were very touching, so she offered to help Nomi compose a song for free, and even helped him shoot a music video, which later became known as "Apu's Missing".
This year, Nomi became famous because he was eliminated from a rap show. Waiwai saw a video of Nomi crying in a hotel, so she called him to comfort him, and invited him to the recording studio to make "Thank God, Thank God" together. Not long after, the phrase "Xie Di, Xie Di, I want to diss you" spread throughout the entire Internet. With its inexplicable homophonic misplacement, it triggered a wave of extremely abstract "Disney check-in" frenzy, creating a state of good spirits. , a highly-participated online carnival, becoming one of the most insane and abstract Internet mysteries this year.
Wai Wai was very happy to see Nomi "walking". He also likes the name "Monster Spawner" - helping unknown rappers move from underground to the stage can give him a huge sense of accomplishment.
The idea of "making a rap show" came to Wai Wai's mind by chance. Similar to the original positioning of the recording studio, Waiwai wants to create a platform to provide those grassroots musicians who are "traveling around on the ground and not recognized", so that they can also have the opportunity to showcase themselves. After
had been preparing for a week, Waiwai and his friends started taking action. He borrowed all the online loans he could. From planning to filming, post-editing and production, there are only five people including Waiwai himself.
The contestants were asked one by one by Wai Wai, and most of them had recorded songs with his help. Many people also participated in another mainstream rap show, but were eliminated. There are also people who are positioned as "copies" of mainstream rappers, such as Wang Yida, bshi, Luo Tian... The judges of the
finals were also recruited through WeChat by relying on their connections. Some people think the program is too low-key and He declined, but the judges who finally came to participate were all friends who did not pay any appearance fees and supported for free. In the
program, the contestants eat and live together, engage in freestyle battles, and compete in groups. The abstract attributes of each link are full: some contestants covered their faces with their hair throughout the whole process, and some jumped into the swimming pool mid-song. Sharp-eyed netizens discovered that the villa area where the program was recorded was listed as "Chengdu Rural Disabled Employment Support Base."
Monster spawner recording location. (Picture/Photo courtesy of interviewee)
But in addition to those joking performances, the audience also discovered many truly capable contestants. The songs of Ma Jin, Basson, Klin and others successfully broke out of the circle because of the show. . Nomi didn't appear again after the first recording session because he was invited by nono, a member of the rap label "Higher Brother", to go to the real Shanghai Disney to shoot the music video.
Rap is a gift for poor children
Waiwai is not a music major. He majored in physical education at Hangzhou Normal University and just received his diploma the day after the interview.
When he was a child, he lived in a small mountain village called "Osmanthus Village" in Chongqing. The village is very remote. To purchase daily necessities, you have to ride a tricycle to the town six or seven kilometers away. In my memory, it was often grandma who carried him on her back.
When I was a child, the only things in Waiwai's world were my grandma and a patch of rice in front of the family yard. Both my parents worked in a motorcycle factory in Ningbo, Zhejiang, and my grandfather also did cement work in other places.
When he was old enough to go to school, his parents moved Waiwai to Ningbo to live with him. The experience of being a left-behind child influenced him and gave him a sensitive, sensible and strong character. When he was in elementary school, on his way home from school one day, Waiwai saw a lower-grade classmate being bullied. He got mad and rushed towards him, and he was also beaten. "Although I didn't succeed in stopping the bullying, I felt that I had a sense of justice at the time."
started to like music in high school. At that time, he liked to listen to Egg Burger and Pug Gang. Many of the lyrics made him feel sad when he was sad. cure. Naturally, Waiwai tried to write songs while in college and taught himself the knowledge of tuning and production online, hoping to one day enter the rap industry.
Few people around me understand this kind of dream. During his sophomore year, his father wanted Waiwai to give up and threatened him that if he insisted on continuing to rap, he would no longer give him living expenses.
This has become an opportunity for transformation. From that time on, Waiwai really didn’t take any living expenses from her family. He worked various part-time jobs: teaching children aerobics in a sports center, working as a lifeguard in a swimming pool, delivering food, serving dishes, and also worked as a resident singer in a bar.I study tuning and production by myself at night, often staying up until three or four in the morning.
Wai Wai teaches children aerobics part-time. (Photo/Photo provided by interviewee)
Growing up, Wai Wai always felt that she was not good enough. "Because my parents are not capable enough, and there are various reasons, they cannot let my grandparents live a particularly good life. I really hope that I will get better, so that the people around me can also get better." Waiwai said, " In fact, I have always longed to be noticed and loved by others, which is why in other people’s impressions, I seem to be constantly helping others, because I myself also long to be helped and cared about by netizens. We discovered that the boy who always wore only one piece of clothing was named Colin, who is 17 years old this year. Wai Wai and Klin met online. Wai Wai admires Klin very much and has said many words of encouragement to him. In 2023, Klin suddenly flew from Lanzhou to Hangzhou to find Waiwai and said he wanted to make songs with him.
In the recording studio, Klin told Waiwai his own experience: Before Klin was born, his parents divorced. My father left, and my mother worked outside all year round to make money. In a rental house of a few square meters, Clint lived together with his grandmother and aunt. He used to be very rebellious and didn't understand why his mother never came home. He hated her very much, but later he gradually understood. At his worst, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Later, Klin fell in love with rap, but there was almost no environment for making music in his hometown. Although his academic performance was not bad, he still told his mother that he did not want to go to school and wanted to engage in music, so her mother could only spend money to send him to an art school. The 4,000 yuan for the flight from Lanzhou to Hangzhou was saved by Klin moving beer boxes in the bar. Because he is still underage, the bar owner only gives him half the salary of ordinary employees.
Seventeen-year-old Colin. (Photo/Photo provided by interviewee)
Waiwai empathizes with Klin's experience. He likes Klin and feels that he has a brother-like love for Klin. He helped Kline compose songs for free. During the show, netizens discovered that Klin had never changed his clothes, so Waiwai even gave him a new set of clothes.
Colin's lyrics always write about the painful past he has experienced, so he is also called "pain rap". In the show, this sincere, introverted but powerful boy is loved by many viewers.
After the recording of the program, Klin returned to school to take the college entrance examination, and his scores were estimated to pass the undergraduate level. However, according to Waiwai, he had been admitted in advance to the Chopin Conservatory of Music.
In the last song of the final, Klin stood on the stage and sang: "Rap music is the best gift for poor children."
Sanqian, the "Cricket Brother" who is now loved by everyone, once lived in embarrassment. He has a technical secondary school degree and has been doing odd jobs. He has made a few songs of his own, but he never thought he would embark on the road of rap. Working with Waiwai to run the studio live broadcast made him unexpectedly loved by many people.
Wai Wai and Sanqian. (Photo/Photo provided by interviewee)
Wai Wai’s persistence in rapping and helping people in similar situations have allowed more and more people to see the sincerity beneath the abstract surface, “Who understands, Wai Wai It really makes people feel safe, a feeling like Mother Earth," said a netizen in the comment section of the show.
spawn more "elite monsters"
Many viewers gave "Rap Monster Spawner" high praise, and even called it "the best rap show in the world." On the one hand, it is indeed funny enough, using absurd expressions to deconstruct everything, trying to eliminate hypocrisy and seriousness; on the other hand, today's audience is also tired of some seriously homogenized rappers.
In contrast, "Monster Spawner" is like a breath of fresh air, with some anti-elite, anti-routine and homogeneous temperament.
Waiwai happily accepted being described as "abstract": "This word has both positive and negative connotations. In my opinion, it is a new model that is in line with the public, and it is also a way of life that belongs to this era. I provide it to everyone. It adds emotional value and brings a kind of personality charm to these musicians."
They even created a brand using the word "abstract". The logo is an elephant, which is "smokeelephant" in English.
(Photo/Photo provided by interviewee)
originated from street rap culture, and has become more typical and pure with these "conspicuous bags". Real rappers can perform on any stage. "We have shown our true selves and let everyone see our music." Waiwai said.
Waiwai is very familiar with the situation of underground rappers. There are not many opportunities left for them in the industry, and the commercial nature of rap is becoming more and more important. In Wai Wai's words, "There are two types of bottom-level rappers, one is very 'stretchy', and the other is It’s down-to-earth.”
Waiwai said that some low-level rappers may only imitate the superficial elements of rap culture - writing arrogant lyrics, buying fake brand names, and pursuing a life state that does not belong to them. "These people sing in their songs about how they can be But for some rappers, rap has always been a spiritual sustenance of a subculture, a bit like the non-mainstream in the 2000s and 10s, but more real. One point. Many low-level rappers are confused about their own development. They really need to be paid attention to and recognized. "
Waiwai hopes to do his best to change this phenomenon: "Because I think making music, especially rapping. There is no distinction between high and low in music."
Recently, Waiwai is helping Kelin, Wang Yida and others to produce their personal eps, and also plans to make a big movie about "Monster Spawners". In the future, he also hopes to make a TV series: "Currently, hip hop in the public eye is just the tip of the iceberg. I want to let more people understand the true status of Chinese hip hop through music and vision." He also wants to go to a TV series this year. I went to Beijing to learn tuning and improve my skills.
"I believe that there will be more 'elite monsters' among us," Wai Wai said.
proofreading: meet
operation: hee hee
typesetting: Chen Yi
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